The Long Wait
by TheFalsePoet
Summary: After the war. Aang has died in the final battle, but only after defeating Ozai. Picks up with Toph meeting up with her new pupil 16 years later. Very mild hints of Zutara, might be expanded later. T for a mildly descriptive death.
1. The Ressurection

**I think everything you need to know for this is described by it. After the war.**

**First attempt at any kind of FanFic, but I don't think it's too horrible. Let me know if I ruined everything :oP**

--

Sixteen years is a long time to wait. Then again, it's nothing compared to the hundred that came before it. It took years to clean up after the war had finally ended. Some of us could do nothing but lose ourselves in the effort, though. If we stopped for one moment the memories of our great sacrifice would return in the form of the cacophony of motion and destruction that erupted from the throne room. Ozai fell that day. The war ended, Zuko took the throne, and we trusted him. He earned his seat. He's lead his nation out of the shadow of war with a strong will and a hardened heart, but even he can't hold back the tears when he's forced to recall the sight of Twinkle-Toes lying motionless on the ground. His father's last act succeeded in tearing apart the brittle sinews holding each one of us together. Our family fell apart, one by one. I felt the little fluttering heart beat fade away as Aang's body grew heavy on the ground. Heavier than he ever was in life. Before anybody even thought to look into that room, I knew the outcome. Two bodies, a freshly ended war, and a heartache more powerful than any of us were prepared to bare. Peace in this world required sacrifice. We knew that before we went in, but we didn't think it'd be like this. Any one of us would've been happy to have laid our lives down for each other, for the world, for peace, for the avatar… but it was his destiny, not ours.

I guess you can say I snapped. I felt around for the first fire nation soldier I could find. Bingo. Next room over, and he's still fighting. I shifted my stance, stomped my foot into the ground and when I realized what I had done, I collapsed onto the ground. Katara says it was the most gruesome thing she'd ever seen - a man, suspended by a jagged piece of rock shooting out of the ground, coming to a sharp point under his helmet and forcing its way through his throat. When she described it to me upon my awakening the next day I didn't know what emotion to show: Pride in my deadly prowess, shame for not being able to hold my rage in check, sorrow for the death of the boy that I came to know all too well. In my indecision all I did was sit there and stare blankly at the ground beneath me.

Sixteen years is a long time to wait, but today his new life is announced to the public, and I stand here at the gates to the fire palace to get my first look at my new pupil and old friend. Odd place for a water bender to be on her birthday, but considering I wouldn't be able to see her in either of the poles, I guess I'm thankful for the odd circumstances that landed her here.

At the age of 8, her original teacher at the South Pole, sifu Pakku, fell sick and was no longer able to instruct his pupils. Some he sent to the North Pole for further instruction while others began teaching themselves as best they could since they didn't have the resources to make the journey. Nini was different, though. She was never told why, but Pakku sent her to see a special teacher. Her family got on a water tribe boat and was sent to the fire nation, where they were greeted by the fire lady herself. Katara, was to be Nini's new master.

When I arrived at the palace, myself, I was greeted with similar enthusiasm from the whole royal court. The first to greet me was the ever ebullient Ty Lee, landing what must have been a marvelous double flip onto my big toe before embracing me. I almost felt bad for sending her flying back to where she came from as soon as the pain in my foot registered. Mai was there as well, as were Iroh and Sokka. When I felt the familiar footsteps of Katara rushing towards me I opened my arms and forced the ground underneath her to hurry up and reach me. Then I felt something… different. A girl, no doubt a water bender judging by the weight placed on her heels. They seem to be born in a defensive stance. She was a new presence in my memory, but somehow familiar.

"Is that Nini?" I whispered to my sister, giving a slight nod towards the girl.

"Toph, there are a lot of people in that direction. Can you be more specific?"

I twisted my foot little by little, and a pillar of Earth slowly grew under the girl I was trying to indicate. She jumped up, a little startled.

Katara giggled a bit and confirmed my suspicions.

I broke free from Katara's death grip of love, and approached her. She was shy, and felt uneasy as I came closer. I bowed deeply, smiled, and greeted her: "Happy birthday, Twinkle-Toes. It's been a while."

Sixteen years I had waited to see my old friend. Not even the horrible memories of the land I stood on could remove the smile I tried desperately to hide.


	2. Who the Hell is TwinkleToes?

**I do not own Avatar. Nor would any of you want me to. It would be rather somber, all the humor would be vastly more dry and it'd have way too much Toph and Mai.**

**I do own my words, however. These are them. The new avatar's perspective of the 16 years since the end of the war.**

--

Sometimes I miss the life that I left behind in the South Pole. My friends there were very dear to me, and the snow was comforting. I learned that by listening to the ice and water I could make it listen to me. There's a sense of peace that I found there that I haven't seen in a long time. It's been eight years now, actually. That was the first time I was asked to leave everything behind me, but it was nothing compared to what came at the end of this Summer. In the years that followed I lived with my parents in a large set of rooms in the Southern wing of the fire palace. We were all shocked to learn that the fire lady would be taking over my water bending instruction in lieu of the ailing master Pakku. I mean, everybody knew she was a water bender, and that she and her friends had brought the world back from the brink of destruction, but we all figured she'd be busy with putting the world back together. Not to mention it was unclear as to whether she had ever tried her hand at teaching anybody other than her daughter Kana. Maybe that's just the impression I got. Whenever I asked about previous students the question was avoided, but I simply learned not to ask about such things. Instead, I focused on what Katara had to teach me. My family traveled the world with Katara and Kana. We made frequent visits to the North and South Poles, as well as a strange swamp in the Earth kingdom with even stranger inhabitants. We even visited the Southern Air Temple once a year. My water bending master often seemed distraught on these trips, and I figured it must've been because of how empty the place was. It stood as a reminder of what the war had done to the world. An entire civilization was wiped out. The air nomads were gone, and to think of it made me sad as well, but I never complained about our annual pilgrimage, because it was one of the only vacations I ever got from the strenuous training that I underwent. Not to mention it gave Kana and I plenty of time to run exploring and playing games of water tag and hide and go splash (a game that Kana had created when she realized that she was awful at the similar fire nation game of hide and explode).

It wasn't until my sixteenth birthday that I was given a better description of… well… everything I guess. I knew there was something strange going on as soon as I woke up. It was the first time I had ever seen master Katara smiling on my birthday. Her and her husband tended to lock themselves away in the throne room on that day. I would never really mind, hell half the time I didn't even notice. My parents were there to celebrate with. We'd either go back to our village in the South Pole (which was quickly becoming more of a city), or we'd have my friends brought to us in the palace. It always hurt to see Katara so sad on my birthday, though. Not that one, though. That day her smile was just as large and comforting as I had ever seen it.

"Good morning Nini."

I slunk out of bed and slowly stood up to greet my teacher. "'Sup?"

"Ohh, not much. Just waiting for a few more guests for our big celebration."

"Big celebration?"

"Well, yeah. Happy birthday Nini. We've gathered a rather large entourage for you this year. Come on out to the courtyard for breakfast when you're done getting ready."

When I had finally gotten myself ready, I made my way out as I was instructed. It was louder than I had ever heard the palace that day, and the noise got louder as I approached the courtyard in need of breakfast. This is probably why I wasn't exactly shocked when I arrived to find the place full of people from every nation, and every expanse of the globe, littered throughout the open grounds. The sounds of intense conversations died down quickly when I stepped out onto the grass, though. Kana was the first to break the new silence with a big "Happy Birthday" and a running start to tackle me with one of the biggest hugs I had ever received. We all sat and ate, and made small talk and they all acted as though this was just how my birthday was supposed to be spent. I was far more used to just being around family, Kana and a few sparse friends from my home town on that day, though.

It wasn't until around lunch time that we all got moved out to the shore. A ship from the Earth kingdom was on its way in to the dock. When I saw a small, frail looking blind girl get off that ship, dressed head to toe in simple, dark green and brown pants and tunic, I wasn't terribly impressed. That is, not until she took a few steps on solid ground. Suddenly, she seemed to own the land beneath her. I was even more shocked when Ty Lee was suddenly rocketed up into the air, not of her own volition for once. The petite blind woman was an Earth bender. She was a powerful one, too. She exchanged greetings with everybody, and spent quite some time in the embrace of Katara. They knew each other quite well. Then, I was moving. I didn't move my body, but the ground beneath my feet lifted me in the air. It took me a few seconds to realize that this new woman was looking blankly at a spot that seemed to be on the horizon just over my right shoulder. She… saw me?

"Happy birthday Twinkle-Toes. It's been a while."

I didn't know what, or whom, she was talking about. 'Twinkle-Toes'? "It's been a while"? I had never met this woman in my life. I would have remembered such a unique figure. Then, it seemed she was done with the silence I was offering as she turned back to my teacher.

"Hehe. Hope I didn't ruin anything. She hasn't been told yet?"

"No Toph," Katara said. Toph… I had heard that name before. It was somehow connected to that room off to the side of Zuko's throne room. Other places as well, but that one seemed to have some special importance. "We're still waiting for the water sages to arrive from the North Pole."

Sages? At my birthday? Wait… it started to make sense. I looked down at the pillar I was still standing on and concentrated.

"It doesn't quite work like that, Nini."

I looked up and saw Toph, still smiling, looking back up at me.

"Ohh, thought I might be able to move it. Just being silly I guess." I let out a little giggle.

"Ohh, you can. It's just, your stance. Widen out your feet a bit more. You have to be as solid as the Earth itself. There is no natural push and pull in -"

"Toph, you were supposed to wait for the sages," Katara interrupted.

"Hey, I'm not the one that's suddenly decided to bring out the entire world for her birthday after she's spent 7 years with you locked away on this particular date."

"I have not been spending"… Katara stopped herself when Toph started laughing loudly.

"You don't think I stopped with the whole lie detecting trick have you? Anyways… I've been doing the same. This time, though, we all have something to celebrate."

I think it was around this point where the Earth beneath me started moving back down.

"Wow Twinkle-Toes. This is gonna be way easier this time around."

As a water tribe boat approached the dock everybody's attention shifted, and my life as a simple water tribe girl, living, of all places, in the middle of the fire nation, was about to end.

Sometimes I miss the life I left behind in the South Pole. I miss Katara and Kana back in the fire palace as well. Somehow, though, learning Earth bending, and about my last life, from sifu Toph, makes me feel like I am still at home in some way.


	3. Too Many Questions

**Again, I don't own Avatar. I don't claim to own Toph, nor the ideas from the show needed for this story. Hell I barely own my brain.**

**Anyways, Chapter 3 hot off the presses. Starting work on Chapter 4 already. I promise an increase in action shortly.**

--

"Don't tell me you're tired already. It's only two o'clock, Bubbles."

I fell to the ground in exhaustion. This whole earthbending thing wasn't as easy as Toph made it look. "We've been doing this since breakfast, though. Can't we at least find some lunch first? I'm starving!"

Three months of this and still I didn't seem to meet her expectations. I was starting to doubt if I ever could. What's the use of being the only girl in the world that could bend all three… four?... elements, if your instructor was the greatest bender in the world? She can't seriously be expecting me to see with my feet as well as she can.

"Alright, one more and I'll let you eat. Now get up before I have to bury you."

I stood up and tied my sash securely around my eyes again. I took my stance and immediately felt Toph shift to pull a boulder out of the solid ground. I felt for her movements and brought up a pillar in the proper spot to stop it. She moved quickly to my left and did the same. I managed to block a second one, but lost my "sight" on my master. Suddenly I felt her come out the ground behind me. The pillar I threw up was too late, and I found myself once again lying on my face with pain shooting through my lower back.

"I know you can feel me when I'm underground like that, Bubbles. What happened?"

"I don't know," I said truthfully. I should've noticed that dive, why was I caught off guard? I must be hungrier than I thought.

"Alright, I'll let you get some rest now, I guess. Let's head back to town and get some food."

I'm getting better at this at least. This is the first time all day that the drill was ended after only three tries. According to sifu Toph I'm doing way better at this than I had in my last incarnation as well. Apparently it had taken him the same three months just to see with his feet well enough to stop a single boulder, let alone the five or six that I was managing with regularity. Hell, I managed to move a rock within minutes of discovering I could, compared to the full day it took me the last time. Still, it was tough. Worse was learning anything at all about Aang. Getting information from Toph about our shared past was like coaxing elephantkoi onto the shore, but it didn't stop me from trying.

I decided to try a different approach to it while we were walking back to town. "Can you at least tell me why Zuko and Katara both seem to shudder whenever they walk by that room in the palace?"

Her face twisted into an odd shape at my question. I couldn't quite read it, but I knew she understood what I was asking. "Not sure what you're talking about, Sweet Cheeks."

These nicknames were getting annoying. "Sweet cheeks" was apparently some odd reference to how much I resembled Katara in attitude; "Bubbles" because of my last life as an airbender, now mixing with water.

"You do so. That room next to the throne room. I used to hide in there with Kana when we wanted to skip our bending training. All it ever did was make her mother furious at us for making her go in there."

"So what? You think I have anything to do with Sugar Queen's belief in ghosts?"

"I don't think, Toph. I know. I heard your name mentioned every time we were pulled out of that place."

Toph suddenly stopped walking. The odd grin, or grimace, or whatever it was, on her face vanished in a heart beat and she stared into the horizon blankly. "Alright, you want to know what happened there so bad, I'll show you." She stomped her foot, made a quick jab into the empty space in front of her, her palm open and facing upwards. The earth in front of us shot upward, and forward, and froze into place. It all came to a point about six feet off the ground, and when I say "point" here, I mean it. The edge of it looked as sharp as a razor. I was still a little confused as to what this had to do with the taboo room in the palace.

"Umm… What does that have to do with it?"

"Imagine that, dripping blood, with a fire nation soldier dangling from the end of it."

Now it was my turn to stare blankly at the horizon.

"Yeah," she continued, "it's not exactly something I'm terribly proud of."

"But… why?"

She continued walking, then stated with no taste of emotion or sarcasm, "personally, I blame you, Bubbles."

I was a little dumbfounded. I was really starting to regret starting this conversation. "What exactly did _I_ do, to make you create such a horrible scene?"

"You died. Or rather, Twinkle-Toes did." She shrugged her shoulders as if it was the exact same thing. "Hmm, come to think of it, maybe I should just say it's your fault for being born."

I decided not to ask anymore questions on the rest of the walk into town.

--

On some level, I was a little glad that I had finally gotten her to stop asking about the past, at least for a little while. I kinda preferred to leave history where it belonged. It belonged in long books, with pretty pictures and harrowing stories, where I would never be able to read about it. I really wondered why I had ever accepted this job. I should've known I'd be asked to explain who she used to be, or describe that horrible war to her, or tell her how she was needed to finish repairing a broken world. How was I supposed to know how the avatar could repair this? Plus, though I could never forget Aang, I had been trying to move on for too long. I had been trying desperately to erase the memories of that final battle on the day of the comet's arrival for 16 years, and she kept digging into it. Every time I'd wake up from a fitful dream she'd give those semi-comforting, cliché words, like "it was only a dream" or "everything's alright now". No, it wasn't only a dream, and no, nothing will ever be alright again. She couldn't seem to understand that. She was too caught up in the idea that kind affection and brotherly (or sisterly) love could heal all wounds, even those caused by lightening charges to the chest, or rock formations that broke through the brain-stem. In short, she had the mind of a waterbender.

"You seriously need to stop thinking like a waterbender." Hmm… did I say that out loud?

"Maybe you need to stop thinking like an earthbender! Ever think about that!?"

"Sorry, didn't mean to offend you. Just, thinking out loud I guess."

"That doesn't change the fact that you thought it. What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing at all."

Please don't pry, please don't pry, please don't

"You're not getting off that easily, master. Is it because I care too much or something?"

Damn it. "Something like that." I absent mindedly scratch at the back of my exposed neck. I stop immediately upon realizing that it's a habit I had picked up from Aang.

"I'm sorry, but I can't help the fact that I love people, but again, maybe you should stop thinking like an earthbender. Let somebody into that heart of yours."

"I have… Is it my fault that the list is limited to Katara, Sokka, Iroh and…" I had to stop myself from saying it.

"Ahh, do I detect a bit of unrequited love?"

Was she mocking me? "Umm, girl, I was friggin' twelve! I didn't even know what love was. Anyways, judging from Katara, I don't know if you'll ever truly figure it out, either."

Pause. I breathe in the silence and enjoy it while it lasts. I know it won't last long. "What do you mean? Katara has Zuko. You're saying that's not love?"

I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut. "Hey, there's Gaoling. Let's get some food, I'll explain later." Now let's just hope she has a bad memory. I know there's really no hope for that, though.

--

**A/N Chapter 4 shortly. Hope you guys are doing alright with the way I've been explaining this so far. Any out of character experiences, tell me, so I can crush them and try again.**


	4. Short Love Story or Prospect of Work

**So, here's the next chapter. Honestly, feels like a bit of filler at the start. The next chapter (also done and being posted) will finish that.**

**By the way, still don't avatar or any character or city names or animal names created for said TV show**

--

Even before our soup was served to us, I knew that Nini was about ready to jump out of her skin with curiosity.

"So? Come on, spill it."

"Alright, might as well lay it on you." She would not be gotten rid of with simple question dodging. She found another angle and kept at it, and it really made me remember that little air head of ours. "So, I guess I'll start with you. About 16 years ago, back when you were a 12 year-old boy, you had the hots for a certain water bender we know."

"What? I… or… Aang, liked Katara?"

"Not liked, dear. He loved that girl. I felt his heart beat hasten whenever she stepped in a room. Whenever she spoke I almost expected him to sigh with contentment at having heard her voice, even if it was just 'dinner's ready' or 'shut-up Sokka'. You… he, had it bad." I felt a light twinge in my chest while describing the whole emotional affair with her. I felt a little stronger about the guy than I wanted to show. It's true what I said about it earlier, I was only 12 and had no real idea what love was. Looking back on it, though, I think I might've been able to truly love that boy if fate let him grow old. Fate, however, doesn't seem to be a big fan of "what ifs".

"And what about Katara? Did she love him too?"

"Well, yeah, but only in the same way that girl loves everybody. She wants to help everybody she meets in any way she can. She wanted to be a mother to us. I guess now she has what she's been training for since I can remember, but love? Love with a capital 'L', that she never felt for Twinkle-Toes."

"Did she even know how Aang felt about her?"

"For the longest time, she was oblivious. She figured it out, though, when Aang laid a nice big smooch on her lips before our first attempt at an invasion."

"WHAT?" It was a rather pleasurable sensation, having this girl sitting across from me fly out of her chair, only to sit back down, and wiggle uneasily, pondering if this made the 16 year-old girl a lesbian. Maybe I'm just making up thoughts to put into her head, but I think it'd be amusing if I just planted a very uneasy visual there for tonight's dreams. "I kissed… Katara? Wow. That's awkward."

"Hah! You have no idea. You should've seen Katara after that. For the next week she wracked her brain, trying to think of what it meant. Then she spent another week trying to straighten out whether she loved him, yada yada yada, sappy love story, finally, turns out she doesn't."

"So, she didn't love him. It happens. She loved Zuko, obviously. Isn't that why they're married now? They have a kid together, there has to be something there."

"That's just it. That 'something' that's there. I don't know if I would have called it love, myself." Nini looked over the table at me with one eyebrow raised. "Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they love each other now. If they didn't there'd be a much more frightening state of affairs in that palace you called home recently, but at the beginning, not so much. Katara was used to everybody accepting her love, and if they're so inclined, returning it. Even I broke down eventually and filled the role of sister for her. Zuko is a completely different story. He was more willful than anybody she had ever met. When she gave him love he stared it in the face, trying to fight the intangible emotion itself. If you ask me, Katara latched on to the desire to fix it. He broke down in time, and now they live, happily ever after, in a big mansion by the volcano. May not be the setting water tribe fairy tales usually end in, but it works for them, and I'm happy about the sordid affair."

There was a rather long comfy silence that followed. By giving her answers I seemed to have found the way to stop her from asking questions. I sat back and finished my soup, and for the first time I could remember, I recalled the days before the last battle fondly. I remembered Aang's piercing laughter and his quick, light heart-beat against the ground. I even remembered the night he saw Katara and Zuko kiss with some sick, narcissistic joy. He ran back to the camp, and I knew something was wrong. I headed over to Appa's side and sat with him there. He never said a word that night, but just leaned on me, and on Appa, and cried. I was his rock that night, and it felt nice. Maybe better than it should have. Aang never asked me to change in those brief months that I had known him. I did, though. I did it without noticing, and I did it because of him. I wanted to be more carefree, and more caring. I wanted to be like this little child, who, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, still found time to laugh and fly and love. He still found time to dream of silly things like flying around with his glider or being a giant and licking Appa the same way he did to Aang. I think I wore off a bit on him as well. Thinking back on who he was when I met him, it's amazing that he had the inner strength to face Ozai head on the way he did. I take more than a little pride in that fact.

"So, where do you fit into all of this?" I was snapped out of my reverie by Nini's curious voice.

"You mean in the crazy love triangle deal? The side-lines. I was there to teach him how to throw rocks, and to go clang on some fire-nation helmets, myself. Like I said, I was 12."

--

When we arrived back at Toph's home there was a man standing out front, pacing the ground in front of the huge gate fast enough to wear a path into the dirt. "Hmm, seems like one of us is gonna have some work to do pretty soon, Sweet Cheeks."

"One of us? It's your house."

"Yeah, but you're my student. Ever hear the term 'indentured servitude'?"

"Lady Bei Fong! Finally, you have returned." The man spoke with as much speed and nervousness as he had been pacing with. "I have been waiting to speak with you."

"How can I be of assistance?" Toph spoke succinctly when dealing with business. She was almost too blunt for my tastes in these situations.

"Actually, it is your student that I come in search of. I hear you have taken on the duty of mentoring the avatar?"

I figured I might as well take the initiative and introduce myself at this point. "That's right," I interrupted, "I am Avatar Nini." Wow, that sounded weird to say. "How can I be of service to you, kind sir?"

"I come from the town of Omashu. It seems that the spirits have become rather angry in the nearby mountain range. We have had three of our iron mines collapse within the last two weeks. None of it seems to be natural, but there's no sign that any humans were involved either. We fear further retribution, but we do not know why they have become so enraged. Can you please come and help us?"

I didn't quite know what to do. Sure I wanted to help. The main purpose of the avatar was to create peace between the spirit world and ours, and this sounded like a situation where I may very well be necessary. How was I supposed to do anything about this, though? "I'm terribly sorry, sir, but I have yet to receive any kind of training in dealing with spirits. I wouldn't know where to begin."

Toph, apparently, felt it necessary to say otherwise. "Nonsense, Nini. The best teacher is always experience. She'd be glad to help you, sir."

"Ohh wonderful! I'll go get our transport ready. Please be ready to go in an hour." He suddenly pinned my arms to my sides in a great platypusbear hug, then ran off down the street.

"Since when are they mining iron near Omashu?" I turned towards Toph's voice, while she spoke to the ground in obvious befuddlement. "Bumi would not be pleased with that happening in his absence."

"You know Omashu, I take it?" I spoke, trying to ease myself into her conversation with nobody.

"Yeah, the last king of that city, Bumi, was a friend of Aang's from his childhood, over a hundred years ago. It was my job to inform King Bumi of the avatar's passing. He then made me ride around in the delivery system they have there. Was certainly one of the strangest ways I've ever been asked to mourn somebody's death. I did it again only two years ago, after the death of King Bumi himself."

"And you say they didn't do much mining in those mountains while Bumi was around?"

"Not at all. The only tunnels in those mountains were decidedly an historic landmark. They were created by two of the first earthbenders."

"Well, guess we should go get some supplies together. How long is the trip from here?"

"A couple days each way at the most. We should be back before the solstice."

After gathering clothes and sparse amounts of food to last for the coming sojourn, I headed out to a carriage that the man from Omashu had brought for the trip. Toph came out shortly after me, with a similar package and what seemed to be sheet-metal tucked under her other arm. I had a bad feeling that my hands were not going to be happy with me by the time this little trip was over with.


	5. Of Spirits and Past Lives

**Those people at Nickelodeon still refuse to give me the rights to the show. Sorry.**

**BTW, time line in this chapter is a little choppy, easy to figure out, though. If you have trouble with it, deal.**

--

My hands ached. I had already gone through the pains of repairing the fractures in the bones, but I knew Toph wouldn't accept recently broken appendages as an excuse to take the day off from my training. We were within a couple hours of Omashu after a day and a half straight of punching sheets of solid iron trying to get them to budge.

"Alright, I'm done explaining it to you. I've gone over it enough. Stop being so afraid of the metal! It only hurts because you're letting the idea of it frighten you."

"I'm not afraid, though! I feel the earth inside it, and I know it wants to move, it's just too spread out in there. I don't think I can do this, Toph."

"Exactly! You don't think you can, so you can't. Look, you're supposed to be the best bender around. You're supposed to be able to do everything I can to this element and do it better, so do it! I'm not letting you so much as talk to a fire bending master until you can." Toph picked up one of the pieces of practice material, flicked it with her index finger, and split it in two. I'm supposed to be able to do this better?

I accept the half of the sheet of iron that Toph holds out to me and close my eyes. Little specks of non-rarified earth flicker about, hidden inside the metal. I ball up my free hand into a fist, still trying to find the right spot to attack. I swing forward, and at the last moment change my target an inch. The shift didn't agree with the substance, and my hand bounced back in pain once more.

"You do realize it's not going to be surprised if you change trajectory at the last moment, right?" Toph put her bare feet up on the bench across from us in the small carriage. "Three months straight, listening to the earth and bending it to your will. Three months of shoving rocks around as though you own them, because that's the way you're supposed to, because you DO own them, and still you're trying to make this a defensive move. It's not. It's not offensive, it's not defensive, it just is." She let out an exasperated sigh, as though it was her that had failed to shove the iron out of place for the hundredth time.

"I think I need to heal my hand again, master. Can we please take a break from this?" I pleaded.

"Alright, we'll pick this back up after you're done in Omashu." She leaned her head out the window to ask the driver how far we were from the city.

"Still about an hour to go. Maybe a little longer."

"Stop the carriage for second, will you?" She shouted out. We came to a stop along the side of the road, and she turned to me. "Get out. Time for a little race."

Toph walked to the front of the carriage and gave the driver instructions on where to take our belongings, then came to stand next to me. For all the power that she harnessed it was easy to forget how short she was. Standing side by side with her like that was the only time it was obvious that she could walk under my arm. "You ready?" she asked. Before I could answer she counted to three, and we pulled the rock out of the ground beneath us, and started pushing our selves along the road as fast as we could.

--

I came to a stop outside of the gates and felt her coming along about thirty paces behind me. She was definitely making good progress with the training. I'd have to send her back to the fire nation as an earth bending master in a matter of days. Once that was done, it'd be back to the monotony of life. Again there'd be nowhere to call home except for a mansion that still felt like a prison. My parents had long since moved out to the country to retire, but I found it hard to go out into the public in that town. Everybody I meet there either wants me to sign a photograph that I can't see, but is certainly of me, as a twelve year old girl, wearing a green and gold belt, or help me across the street like I'm some decrepit old lady. Bubbles looked up to me as her teacher, not as some petty show fighter, and she certainly didn't see me as a defenseless blind lady. I was going to miss that.

"How are you… not even… sweating?" She squeezed the sentence out between gasps for air.

"Catch your breath fast, Sweet Cheeks. We've got some cave diving to do." I start walking towards the cave of two lovers. "And take off those boots already. They slow you down too much."

Nini caught up to me just before I got to the cave's entrance. "Alright, so what is this place?" She was shifting her head around looking at the inscriptions around the opening.

The inside of the mountain felt dead. Nothing was moving at all. I couldn't even feel a single badgermole shifting the tunnels to hunt. Somberly, I looked up to my pupil. "It's a tomb."

She walked straight into the labyrinth of tunnels. I followed, allowing her to find her way around with her own feet. About twenty minutes in she came to a stop outside a large, walled off room. "Something's not right in there." She pointed to the doorway.

"Don't look at me. I just kick rocks around, I don't deal with the whole spirit world thing."

Nini effortlessly shoved the large round door out of the way and walked inside. This place really was a tomb. She didn't say a word as she walked down to the center of the large room and sat down in a lotus position.

I stood behind her, trying not to disturb her meditations. I think I should've just waited outside the mountain. The stillness of the earth was eerie, but something in that cave was making a lot of noise, and it seemed to be coming closer. I slammed the door back into place at the entrance to the room just in time to feel something slam into it from the outside. Wait a second. Where'd Nini go? She's not touching the ground anymore. Then I hear the sound of something move past me, towards the door at lightening speed.

"Let him through, Toph." It wasn't Nini's voice anymore. It was the avatar's voice. A discordant array of the hundreds of voices that the avatar has had throughout all the lives that came before this one. I nodded my head in the dark and allowed the door to crumble.

--

The last thing I remember before being carried out into the light on Toph's back was entering the spirit world. It seemed to be a large swamp. At least it did where I entered. Looking down into one of the pools of water I expected to see my own reflection, but it wasn't my gaze that I met. He was bald with blue arrow tattoos on his forehead and all four limbs. He wore no shirt, and carried a massive, blood red scar on his torso. I looked up to find the same child standing in front of me. Thin, shorter even than Toph, and at most 14 years old. Then it occurred to me who it must be. Aang. The child I once was.

"I am sorry to have left you with the great imbalance you have inherited from me, Nini. We have much to discuss." He sounded deeply mournful, as though he carried all the hurt in the world with his voice.

"What imbalance? You mean the cave? I figured that was the fault of the miners. I should be able to clear that up in no time."

"I don't mean the cave. What I must ask of you is far greater, but we do not have time for it here. You must meet me in the sacred hall at the Southern Air Temple on the coming winter solstice. I am sure you will find a way in. As for the spirit that inhabits the cave you're currently in, I'll talk to him for you. I am sure you know what needs to be done to truly appease him, though."

I nodded my head, uncertain if I really knew what to do or not. Then his tattoos began to glow bright blue, as did his eyes. I looked down into a pool of water I was standing in, only to see my eyes bursting with the same light, then the spirit world disappeared, and the light outside the cave of two lovers pulled me back to consciousness.

"Toph, what happened?"

She just shook her head, smiled and pulled me to my feet by my hand.

--

After flying past me to the door, Nini simply walked directly to the mouth of the spirit in front of us. Placing a hand on his forehead, the great screams it emitted died down to resemble the soft purr of a baby badgermole. Then, she walked towards me, but it was not on her own feet. It was on the feet of an airbender that she approached me. Placing a hand too small to be hers on my cheek, she spoke. Of the thousands of voices that she spoke with a moment ago, only one came through this time. It was Twinkle-Toes.

"Toph, you have spent over 16 years trying to imagine a world where I would be allowed to grow up along side of you. I know the image of the two of us, the only members of our old family with no home to go back to, wandering the world setting all things evil right is a fun idea to play with, but you must accept that I died a 12 year-old boy, and you still have a long life ahead of you. Live it. Go build your home, and forget about what I could've been, or what you wanted me to be."

The hand that rested upon my cheek grew and went limp. I reached out just in time to carry Nini, now back to being Nini, out of the cave. I laid her down just outside in the daylight, and waited for the avatar to regain consciousness.

"Toph, what happened?"

I wanted to answer her, but couldn't find the words.

We walked back into town together. I was looking forward to a meal and a relaxing evening at home while she ran around town dealing with all that avatar mumbo-jumbo.


	6. Travel Plans

**I do not own Avatar. I do not own the character or cities or lands mentioned or appearing in this story. I own nothing but a bass guitar, a camera, and my own insanity. I love them all, and here I impart the insanity unto you.**

**Sorry for the delay between updates. Was stuck reading Snuff by Pahlaniuk for the last couple days. Not his best work, but it's definitely worth a read.**

**By the way, closing in on the end of this stretch of the story. Will be starting a new one once my little Nini has moved on to fire bending.**

--

"So, whatcha gonna do about that mountain spirit, Sweet Cheeks?"

I looked up from the poor attempt at an oceanfruit salad the chef had cooked up for me to find Toph's dim jade eyes prying into my own inquisitively. "Hmm… that's the easy part actually. Those caves were never meant to be inhabited by people. At least not for the purpose they're using it for. Figured I'd clear out the miners and bring in some new badgermoles to let them heal the altered earth in there."

"So what's got you so troubled? You're picking at your food like it's about to run away from you, and you haven't said a word since we got back to town."

"Well, I talked to Aang while I was in the spirit world. What he said, it was rather distressing."

"So did I, and, yeah, it was."

"You talked to him? What'd he say?"

"Nothing too important," Toph said, effectively skirting the question, "I figure that he'd have more prevalent issues to discuss with the new avatar anyways."

"Well," I started, and didn't know how to continue. Instead I stabbed my fork gently into my salad a couple more times trying to find the right words under a leaf of old seacabbage. "He said that I had to be at the Southern Air Temple on the solstice to meet with him. Something about a sacred room and a great imbalance." I looked up to find Toph polishing off the last of her cow-hippo steak.

"No problem. We'll get the mountain issue taken care of tonight, then we'll hop on a zeppelin for the Southern Temple tomorrow. Still have two days before the solstice."

"But how are we supposed to get into the air temple sanctuary? Katara used to say the only way in there was with airbending, back when we used to go there annually." I had almost forgotten about those trips. Katara and Kana will have already made their visit by now. It was about a month after my birthday that we'd go there. It was still fairly warm then.

"Well, the door may be locked, but it's made of rock, isn't it?"

I thought for a second, and realized the whole ordeal was easier than I made it out to be in my mind. "Actually, the door is wood, but the walls are rock. I would feel weird about defacing a sanctuary like that, but it's not like we couldn't fix it afterwards."

"Well, I'm going off to the room they've got for us here. You go yell at some people and fix this. We'll need to leave this place in the morning."

"Actually, there's something I want to do before we leave." I don't exactly know why I suddenly felt so adventurous, but it just looked like it might be fun. "You know how you said, after Aang died, and then after Bumi died…" Toph's face lit up, already knowing what I was getting at.

"Are you kidding me? Of course! It's the only mode of travel that kid ever used that I actually enjoy!"

With that, we both stood up from out meal, walked outside and went our own way. Toph heading back to the upstairs flat that we'd be sleeping in, and myself heading up to the king's residence to have a very civil discussion about why mining iron in what should be treated like a monument should be punishable by castration to whoever allowed it.

--

"WHY THE HELL DID I DECIDE TO DO THIS?!" I was already questioning myself when we reached the top. I was skeptical before I got into the delivery crate. Still, I sat down inside, held on tight, and screamed my lungs out while we sped down the great delivery system of Omashu.

"What are you talking about? This is great! At least, it is as long as this thing is connected to the track." Toph's face was nothing but one huge, satisfied smile.

"Where are the brakes?!" About 40 yards up ahead there was another stone package crate, waiting to be dropped onto another crude earthen slide.

"Umm.. You're gonna have to guide us for a second."

Toph had apparently noticed the same thing, as she lifted a ramp out of the track we were on just in time to send us hurtling through the air. It was about twelve stories to the ground, and it didn't look like we were going to land on anything until we hit the houses underneath us. As we were now in the air, Toph's sight was limited to only the death trap we were standing in, and the vibrations emitted by myself, the vessel's only other occupant. I looked wildly for a track close enough to manipulate or a stream to redirect, but there was nothing. The closest chute was about twenty feet below us, and a good fifteen feet off to the right. I wished I had more space to move, but I made do with what Toph's diminutive frame, and the small stone structure around us could give and started bending the water in the moist late autumn air. Little by little I managed to get enough water to form a small stretch of ice for our craft to slide on. Using it to redirect ourselves toward the delivery chute to the right, I began focusing on bending the earth in the ramp. Just before we got to its level, I managed to have it face us and accept the small vessel we were traveling in with a thud and a crack. Toph looked a little less worried once we were on the earthen ramp again.

"Bad news, Bubbles" she said as the relief quickly disappeared from her face. I turned back around to see a large metal gate at the bottom of the ramp. "I can't see it well enough from here to bend it."

I quickly tore off my shoes and closed my eyes. I felt it coming. I felt all of it. It almost felt like time went slower the closer we got to it, but every vibration in that pair of metal doors was suddenly obvious to me. I moved my right foot back to get a good solid base. Lifted my left foot in the air, and lunged forward with both fists. My foot made contact with the inside of the packaging crate at the same time as my fists powered into the metal inches away from bringing us to an instant halt. The iron gave no resistance. We came through onto a flat clearing and began slowing down. I turned around to see the shredded remains where the gate had previously been. Our crate stopped, and the only reaction that I could give was to feint.

--

I give Bubbles a good hard slap, which brings her back to consciousness immediately. "You do realize what this means, right?"

"Umm… that you're ready to call me an earthbending master?"

"Not quite. I still get you for a little bit longer. What it means is that I am _never_ riding in these freaky little, earthenware death traps again! How in the name of Agni did Aang and Bumi find this fun?! How did _I_ find it fun?!" I feel Nini's face morph into what I guess to be a smile, but judging from the feinting spell and her still accelerated heart beat I don't think she disagrees with me.

"Let's just get our stuff and get out of here. Omashu is probably better off without us ruining their delivery system anyways." Nini was right. I can't exactly see the destruction in our wake, but I'm sure more than one building had suffered from what just happened. "By the way, I think we need to do some shopping before we get to the air temple. I didn't exactly pack for the freezing weather we're gonna see down there. Plus, I just threw away my only pair of shoes."

We managed to get out of town before the destruction made it's way back to our arrest, and headed for the closest zeppelin hub.

--

**A/N BTW, when I say "Zeppelin" here, i mean the big hulking metal war balloons, which, since the war is over, are now piloted as a form of transportation. Useful way of helping the fire nation rebuild an economy, as they'd really be the only candidates to pilot such vehicles.**


End file.
